#136. '3,000 Years of Longing'
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George Miller's 3,000 Years of Longing, with Idris Elba as a djinn who is summoned by Tilda Swinton's lonely narratologist, splits the panel hard: Sonny gives a rapturous, borderline-emotional defense of it as a magical-realist meditation on story versus science and love versus loneliness, while JVL says he hated it more than almost anything he's seen recently — more even than Uncut Gems — tearing into its unearned final-act turn, its refusal to pay off its own rules (the recurring "I'm not a trickster jinn" bit especially annoys him), and Tilda Swinton's screen presence generally; he also can't shake the sense that the film is a raw, self-indulgent grief piece given Miller's dedication to his late wife in the coda. Vic, mostly bored and unmoved, runs it through his Quadrant system for an overall B-minus: plot a B-plus, duration a C, violence/action a D, and sex/nudity an A-plus thanks to a much-discussed, deliberately shocking harem sequence featuring an enormous nude character. Gene's recurring poetic segment weighs in on the film as well, and the box-office rundown notes it opened in a soft seventh place with $2.9 million. The first third is dominated by JVL's extended, delighted account of his new basketball hoop installation and the elaborate tip he gave the UPS driver "Vinny" who delivered it (with Vic and Sonny debating proper tipping etiquette at length), plus Sonny's minor embarrassment over mispronouncing "anime" on a guest podcast taping and the return of his "annual video game" (an old copy of God of War). Vic also delivers a dental update — a follow-up with his oral surgeon about the wayward molar he's already nicknaming his "Gabriel tooth" — describing the planned extraction as "totally routine" while the others needle him about how routine it actually sounds. The episode closes with a quick discussion of Ana de Armas's Blonde drawing an NC-17 rating and what that might mean for its release.
From the show notes
Two weeks of Gene in a row? It's like the peoples's wishes have been answered!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00There's no story about wishing that is not a cautionary tale. We all have desires, even if they remain hidden from us. But it is your story and I cannot wait to see where it goes. Oh, how it might end.
Vic00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget about the Sub-Beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com. Gentlemen, how are we? JVL, what's going on? I got my basketball hoop. Oh, it's so good. Thanks. Yeah. Was that the installer?
JVL00:01:01So, you know, when we were talking last week, I was joking about the delivery, right? I said, yeah, there'll be some guy named Antony. There'll be some guy named Antony or somebody, and you know, we'll work out a deal, right? Anyway, hand to God, hand to God, I get a phone call from some woman who sounds like Tony Soprano's sister, and she says, are you gonna, you know, are you gonna be around from 7:30 PM? I said, yeah. Yeah. Why? And she said, well, we'll have our truck come over. I said, great. 7:30 PM. My phone rings. Hey, uh, is this Jonathan last? Yes. Vinny Vinny from UPS. What's up? I got, I got a package for you. Big old pallet, but I'm not quite sure what to do with it. You want to, you want to come down and come down the street. We'll figure it out. So I come down and his, this gentleman's name is Vinny. And that's not an unusual name. That's nice name. There's not enough Vinny's. How many people? I mean, if I had a nickel for every person in Virginia, I met whose name was named Vinny Vinny, you know, for every Italian American gentlemen I met in Virginia and Vinny and Dylan and Tyler. So I would like to know Victorino, if you approve of the way I handled this. All right. So I was Vinny's final stop. Uh, it was late. It was 7:30. Uh, I did not have to back all the way up my driveway. He could have just dropped this thing off at the foot of the driveway. That's all the delivery really called for. And he worked for UPS, worked for UPS and, uh, and he said to me, unbidden, he said, this thing's weighs like 800 pounds. You don't wanna have to lug this up from the bottom of your driveway to the top. I, I, I think I can back up there. I think the truck will fit. So he backs all the way up. He puts, it's one of those trucks where it has like the, the loading elevator that goes up and down.
Vic00:03:02Yeah. Yeah. Sure.
JVL00:03:05Of course he maneuvered how he gets this pallet out of the truck. I have no idea. It's it's, it's like Tetris with, uh, uh, not even a hand truck, more like a mini forklift, a manual forklift.
Vic00:03:15Oh yeah.
JVL00:03:16Sure. And he gets this thing out and, uh, he's all fitting in. It's the nicest guy. And we're talking the whole time. Of course he is. Only, only, only up here in north Jersey does Vinny, the UPS guy say to you, uh yeah you see goldman sachs said everybody's got to go back to work in the office now that's great you know even the ups guys are cued into the world of finance that is very north jersey and uh and so he as he finishes up i reach into my pocket and i pull out a jackson a fitty oh a grant and i said i said to him i said vinnie i said buddy i i don't want to i don't want to insult you so please if i'm if i'm doing something wrong tell me and i'm i'm talking i'm talking just like i am now i said of course i don't want to insult you but i'm so grateful for what you've done for me and the way that you i mean i it's late you're working past your time i said i would it would really make me happy if you'd like go and buy a bottle bottle of wine tonight too much explaining i would have just i would have
Vic00:04:26not even said i would have just handed him and not even looked like don't look at it i'm just giving you i'm slipping you something just that's how i would
JVL00:04:33have anyway he said oh that's god thank you that's so nice see i'll get two bottles of wine with this but i wasn't sure are you supposed to pretend it's not happening yes or yeah yeah yeah you
Vic00:04:46you shake his hand with your palm you palm it you shake his hand you say hey thanks a lot first off
Sonny00:04:52what you want to do is you want to have a roll a roll of money in your pocket you want to have
Vic00:04:5820 singles 50 singles hundreds hey why don't you take this with a 20 on the outside take this to double d's which is just around the corner from where you are by the way anyway by the thing i
JVL00:05:10are you serious about this i gotta say i do not like the idea of not mentioning because if you don't mention it no that is not egalitarian that's like he vinnie is the help no no no no no this is
Vic00:05:23this is like yes i agree with this we're just two guys no but your version's like hey he's doing his yeah but your version is also like sort of like hey i want you to look at something my large ass here we are i you we don't have video they can't see us just two guys i'm holding out the 50 like hey here you go i didn't do that i didn't like you know oh look at this don't
Sonny00:05:43spend this in one place i just said vincent vincent you did a fine job you did a fine job today that's that's the accent here and you talk into his pocket and here you go go get yourself
JVL00:05:57a nice little cup of coffee sir i think enjoy your dinner at karabas i am an egalitarian kind of guy and look vinnie and i are both working stiffs yeah that's what this is like same time we were the same people honestly yes practically someday i may wind up at ups i'm not i'm not that's not you know out of the realm of possibility with the industry we are all in that's right and uh and and so i just we all like i'm just grateful that he went the extra mile for me he didn't have
Vic00:06:27to he didn't have to do that and so i don't know it's very nice either way regardless of how you
Sonny00:06:34did it you did it and that's a good thing question yeah was the 50 was the 50 your choice were you like he did 50 worth of of favor here or was it just all you had were you like were you trying to decide between the 20 and the 50. i had a bunch of 20s or five or ten i had a bunch of 20s and i had
JVL00:06:57a i mean you look if it had been 4 30 in the afternoon or something and he backed up then i might have like given him a 20 or two 20s but but this guy did everything by himself and again it's 7 30 like he was he was ready to clock out i was his last stop on his route he was past his dinner time he's got to drive his truck back to minuti and i i don't know but touching monaki
Vic00:07:20i think is how it's so i believe it's pronounced from the monarchy but uh anyway so look and also
JVL00:07:26i invited him to come inside for some gabagool okay all right that's too much down i said
Vic00:07:31vinnie don't come inside you don't have any uh in there i'm sure but that but
Sonny00:07:37anyway good for you good for you no i think that's good i think that i think i think that's
JVL00:07:43i i personally wouldn't that's good i wouldn't i wouldn't have done uh i wouldn't have done a
Sonny00:07:47whole thing but i might have just been like thanks hey is it okay is this uh because you know
Vic00:07:51sometimes they're not allowed oh i don't even i wouldn't even ask go say okay i just say hey thanks
JVL00:07:56thanks well i i think that feels weird if it's like hey thanks that's like you're the servant you're no no no hey or something you know what i'm talking about you know but you don't have to
Vic00:08:06actually say that you just it's it's in the look it's amazing now yeah and i i again my only frame
Sonny00:08:11of reference here is the soprano so i'm just imagining like what would tony do and tony what tony would do is he would pull out a roll of money and he would just start peeling them off but that's
JVL00:08:20because tony is like showing his position right he is yeah a made guy and i'm not i'm just uh i will say that the the guys who came and installed the thing for me they did this entire thing soup to nuts in maybe 45 minutes all right so the up okay go ahead had i attempted to install this myself let's pretend somebody else did all the jack hammering and concrete pouring and all that all i had to do was take the things out of the boxes and put set them up in the anchor we're looking at three or four months probably
Vic00:08:59no and dangerous it's heavy this stuff is heavy oh my gosh it's so heavy yeah i bet i mean this
JVL00:09:05is like five gauge powder coated steel it is heavy as anything and uh off the backboard half inch thick tempered glass
Sonny00:09:16we throwing down dunks on the seven foot rim on the eight
JVL00:09:20i was throwing down on the eight today santino look at that and my children surprised you're amazed i was throwing alley-oops to flash on the eight foot i'm surprised your achilles is still intact uh it was getting up that high it was the back that was hurting that's the age we're at or something over there
Vic00:09:40it's so great that's all that's all i've got that's all i've got how are you boys congratulations
JVL00:09:46congratulations did you see it vick did you see the picture i sent you it was yeah well
Vic00:09:49i did i saw the picture of the guy and it was a weird looking it was like a weird angle where the guy looked either i was upstairs i was upstairs so i he had yet to put it up higher or he he wanted it that height when he was because he looked like he was about the same height low with it so again
JVL00:10:06so it's it's adjustable yeah and so to mount the backboard on it you want the frame on the lowest position so you're not lifting this 200 pound backboard up yeah but i sent you a finished
Vic00:10:15picture yes yes you could practically uh get a second uh backboard no it's about three
JVL00:10:24points so the i have essentially out to a three-point line okay good have you started
Sonny00:10:30have you started looking at uh a company to come yes an actual key yeah and arc yeah are you gonna when you get it done are you going to do both a high school and i was going to say college only
Vic00:10:44high school high school okay or pro just put it in the pro line and that'll be the goal that's something to aspire to from that distance i i there i there's never been a point in my life
JVL00:10:53there has never been a point in my life where i could hit nba threes
Sonny00:10:58it's like you just have to hurl it yeah yeah that's like a three-point shot for me do you
Vic00:11:03have you guys that half you're like in college i guess you could just have they do this if you go to nba games too you know you've have you ever wondered about like if you got called to do that or maybe you have done it you know where you make the layup and then the the two point like the free throw and then all of a sudden fifty dollars a hundred dollars ten thousand dollars yes
Sonny00:11:23and yeah i'd fall down i'd fall down on my face trying to do the layup i i i mean i like i can i can i can make a layup just not but the pressure of it i would get the ball and i would dribble it off my foot and i'd like kind of stumble over and i'd pick it and i'd just fall down yeah i imagine
Vic00:11:40with everybody there suppose it's like an nba games it's a lot of people or a college and you know you're you're there with classmates or whoever i bet you it seems like enormously tall compared to even though it's supposed to be as we all know the same height regulation but that you know just to get the layup and then of course once you get a free throw amazing okay and then the half court shot i've seen two people do it two ways right i've seen people do the run and then just hurl the truck and then other people just do this right baseball just one hand and just grow it and see aim for the backboard and see what happens just you know sometimes i would
Sonny00:12:18i'd be going i'd be going to do that layup and the the backboard would zoom away from me away from me like a reverse dolly zoom right guys
Vic00:12:29quick get run into the tunnel sonny don't come out all right so what are you boys up to what's
Sonny00:12:35yeah sonny what's going on sorry i'm getting loud uh not a whole lot i have bad news it's it's really just a personal hassle for me i taped a i taped a podcast today with a a guy who works at crunchy roll which is a animation studio and unfortunately i pronounce the word animation i pronounce the word anime the whole time instead of as jbl noted animes now i have to go back and record my entire time did he even know what you were talking about no i well he didn't embarrass me on my own show thankfully he was you know he was very kind and did you say did you say hentai or hentai how did you well i my first question was so how many tentacles does it require to for it to become
Vic00:13:21both of you is that how it's pronounced it's funny yeah yeah bouquet that's right you bu cake uh yes tentacles tentacles you didn't get into that with him tentacles because that's how many tentacles
Sonny00:13:33once you get past six tentacles is that like a different kind yeah well then it's like inappropriate
Vic00:13:39do you remember this went around early early internet or maybe pre-internet jbl and it was uh but i saw it actually like printed out you remember when jokes used to be printed out like hey look at this joke and it was like it was looking yes look at this joke i got no no come here pulling pulling
Sonny00:14:00things out of your trench coat look at this joke i got it was printed out how did you get how did
Vic00:14:04they get the joke it was printed out and it's grainy uh it's dot matrix photocopied one of the
JVL00:14:09jokes from penthouse yeah that's right that's right so this one i went to the high school
Vic00:14:13library and it was like right you know yes so uh and this was a uh march madness bracket of fetishes do you remember this jvl it was in our office and it was hilarious i can't even tell you what the fetishes were but some of them i'm not even going to tell you what they were here unless you'd have to bleep it out but uh what was the final four i don't i voted for i i can't you can have to bleep it out i voted for over decapi because i didn't know what decapi was
Sonny00:14:47do i have to bleep the second one
Vic00:14:50no so there were several right so there were several japanese terms and i didn't know what they were and that frightened me i'm just going to say it right what did claudia vote for okay so anyway uh you that was it crunchy that was the whole thing i know no no no i i i mean
Sonny00:15:11that that was that was that was that was it no it's funny i uh that was a bit i was just i was just doing humor some of us try to be funny on this show sometimes we don't just you know we set up we get some we get uh anyway uh no my my life is fine i um uh i i started playing a video game this week i played my i play i'm starting to play my annual video game i remembered that like three years ago i bought the new god of war on playstation 4 and i was like i'll just play it on my playstation 5 and it works fine so it's uh did you ever play it on your playstation 4 no i never played it on the playstation what is literally i literally i bought it i remember no i remember because i remember exactly what it was there was a it was there was like a um uh a black friday sale at gamestop or something and it was like ten dollars for the new god of war game i was like that's an amazing deal i gotta get that i gotta get i gotta get that that and then i just
JVL00:16:05put it away playstation 4 god of war cost now like 5.99 like 15 oh okay well so you're still five
Vic00:16:13dollars i still save money what is god of war grand strategy is it first person shooter no
Sonny00:16:19no it's like a well well it's it's a uh third person uh action adventure this isn't a game
JVL00:16:28for us no i have to invent anything yeah it's more like there's no it's not political it's
Vic00:16:34not geopolitical duty or something yeah who cares okay all right yeah because you know what i just want to let you know sonny you're going to describe video games you got to keep it short because
Sonny00:16:42jonathan and i would never talk at length for that video anyway anyway i'm playing a video game that's
Vic00:16:49that's what's going on in my world right now my annual video game it's good to change things up in
JVL00:16:54your mind when you get a chance it's you know yeah now vic i i hear that you uh on your weekend you found a magic lamp and there was a genie that came out of it and it granted you only one wish and you
Vic00:17:08said i want to see a movie with a lot of skin and much like much like uh monkey's paw and fantasy no matter what you wish for hmm it's going to be a bad wish uh i'm sorry that'll be funnier later
Sonny00:17:24in the show i'll tell you yeah i i don't know why you you you really wanted to get that one out you
JVL00:17:28were like i didn't know why because i didn't want to get this joke out yeah yeah thanks thanks a lot
Vic00:17:33uh uh you know i actually had my follow-up with the oral surgeon oh no so it's a little
Sonny00:17:39bit of a ghost to get your gabriel tooth out what to get your gabriel yes to get you the
Vic00:17:44key real tooth out uh it's like what is what is it total recall coato malignant what's up yeah it's this other creature now uh so he you know just wanted to reassure me that's right no he wasn't sorry and so uh he wanted to reassure me that this he would consider this routine and that you know uh i did not tell him that well i i got a second opinion that doesn't help you know so i just was like yeah yep i okay fine and he says you know do it at the hospital just so you're comfortable and uh there's gonna be you know me another surgeon and another doctor it'll be like three doctors there'll be a whole team really just you know yeah totally routine it's a whole totally routine we'll have a helicopter on
JVL00:18:26standby of course just in case but don't worry it's totally routine and it's like you know also
Vic00:18:33a priest and a sorcerer yes the priest and what was the last one JVL sorcerer yes just in case
Sonny00:18:39sorcerer organ donor sitting in the hall we have a Tom Hardy blood bag so we can just hook you right up
Vic00:18:44yeah that's right uh so uh that that was it and then uh and you'll be our listeners will be disappointed because we don't have video but he explained how you know they'll do the incision just all the way across above you know from one side to the other they just open it up and then go in drain it out all you know a little biopsy just to make sure everything is okay and uh and that that's that's that'll be it and then you know stitches dissolvable stitches some bleeding obviously because of you know nose and everything else but you know it'll it'll be
JVL00:19:17fine i'll have meds i'm just gonna peel the top half of your face up and then roll it right back
Vic00:19:21down that's not a big deal and totally routine there will be totally there will be some swelling obviously in the front uh he's like mayor of whoville but you know which is a shame for somebody as good looking as myself uh but i do go back i go back to uh when this how this all began because it was when i went to the metro 29 diner and i got the greek uh the gyro platter with the greek salad on the side and i bit into that kalamata olive with the extremely sharp pit that split my tooth went to the dentist was unable to extract it successfully so i went to the oral surgeon when they did the cat scan and that's how they found it and i don't sometimes i think imagine if i had gotten the western omelet ignorance is bliss because this thing he says has probably been there for 10 years and that's something that i just you know
Sonny00:20:16sometimes i wish it's been there for 50 years it's been there since you were born hey 50 come on now take it easy now it's it's the other it's the other part out it's the other i'm not there yet no oh oh i'm sorry i'm sorry it's been there for 49.78 i have a question victorino jvl yes has
JVL00:20:33your surgeon considered as they come up with your surgical plan for the team and the team he's assembling yeah the a team that he's he's bringing together for this totally routine thing yes what happens if the tooth does not want to come out oh it'll come out it'll come out what if it makes
Vic00:20:53break they have implemented like further up they have implements surgeons have implements it's not
Sonny00:20:56a dentist so wait i don't under so they're like cutting your gums yeah above like across yeah they go deep in there sonny don't oh and they got to go up in the nasal below it's just above the nasal floor yeah it's uh well why don't they why don't they go in through the nose
Vic00:21:11no i think there's probably because of uh perhaps the bone and stuff like that would have to you know and things i don't know it's you know this is what they call the triangle death so i'm not gonna what are you i'm not gonna i'm not gonna second guess
Sonny00:21:24what are you gonna do when they replace your face with john travolta's oh
JVL00:21:32big's gonna walk into his house and go oh the plot thickens right to dominic swain was it
Vic00:21:37dominic swain if only i look like well dr javalta then please not john travolta now man that would be scary uh anyway i just uh i sometimes i just wish i never knew speaking of wishes over the weekend three thousand years of longing debuted in seventh place let's go down with a whopping a whopping 2.9 million sunny in first place was something called the invitation you'll have to explain that one to us at 6.8 followed by bullet train at 5.6 million and beast in third place with 4.9 million so beast which had been around with each cell but did better than an aegis album opening
Sonny00:22:20well this is uh you you how do you know we're in the doldrums of summer it's because we got competing interest elba starring movies right right right uh so here's my here's my thought
Vic00:22:30and then i want your thoughts on this um uh people i see uh you were engaged with folks on twitter about this they were complaining that the problem is marketing if only they marketed this movie 3 000 years of longing better it would have a better box office
Sonny00:22:50what are your thoughts and jvls there's no i so i'm gonna preface all this by saying that and we'll talk about this a minute i like 3000 years of longing i think it's an interesting movie um i i enjoyed it and whatever we'll get to that but coming out of the coming out of the theater i was like there's no marketing campaign on earth that they could have put together that would convince come out for this thing like it just it's it's it is unmarketable it because it's not an it's not really a rom-com it's not really an action movie yeah there's not much um it's not a horror it's not it's not a horror movie it's not you know so i don't it doesn't really fall square into any genre and then on top of that it's it does not have bankable stars i'm sorry i like tilda swinton i like yadris elba they're both fine actors and i'm pretty sure that was it wasn't it there were no other actors i recognized yeah that was about it that's that's about it um you know i i like but they they are not bankable stars they are not the sort of people you put on the marquee and folks show up um you know there there was no way to market this movie and and ever have it be an an enormous success they they tried they tried so i saw the trailer for this probably 30 times over the last six months it played in front of everything that i saw that had a pg-13 rating or higher and uh and you know what was what was interesting about it was that they they sold it as here's the new movie from the guy who made mad max fury road that's it that's like the only way they could sell this thing and that doesn't get people to show up because you know who nobody gives a about in the world is directors like there's there's there are there's precisely two directors on this planet who people will show up for go for it yeah
Vic00:24:42um i was gonna make a joke but i'm not gonna make a joke i'll just say spielberg and scorsese
JVL00:24:49no no one no one no and uh i guess spielberg not really anymore just nolan no one else nolan and
Sonny00:24:56tarantino yeah tarantino tarantino no christopher nolan and quentin tarantino are the only two and i like i know this because i've talked to a guy who was in distribution and exhibition and he's like look we you can talk about all tours all you want and there are folks who you know you can get a little extra bump from you know a guy like garibald del toro or steven spielberg or whatever but the only the only directors that anybody will actually show up for because it is a movie by that director christopher nolan and quentin tarantino so like anyway i like from the director of mad max furry road is kind of interesting but it's not like anyone's like george miller gotta go see the new george miller uh so i you know there was no marketing campaign on this planet that was going to get people to show up for it and any every anybody who is like so brain poisoned on twitter that they're like oh the studio is burying this by not promoting it i you're crazy you're cr you saw the move we all saw that movie like how would you promote it did we all how would
Vic00:25:58you promote it yeah all four of us saw it oh what he's look who's here he's back again 3000 years of longing is the story of a lonely woman who finds love in a magic bottle it even has ridges she strokes it and lo and behold a jd comes out he tells her tales of his life including a harem of women who only hunger for one thing food i haven't seen this many plus sizes since the new victoria's secret catalog oh 000 years of longing more like 3000 pounds of longing but back to our heroine she falls in love with the genie because he's so well endowed with superpowers she longs for someone to fill the void in her life someone to expand the inner walls of her mind but is her wish his command i give three thousand years three stars gene three star boy gene is a rather confused right he was cheap date gene uh you know you were asking about by the way uh i i was gonna say three thousand years of longing for a shish kebab that's what it was over there but uh it's uh who the who is the target audience and is it supposed to be middle-aged couples because i saw a middle-aged couple in my
Sonny00:27:40theater and and actually nobody else yeah i mean i like i saw that there were four jbl how far did
JVL00:27:47you have to go to find this movie and how crowded it's easy i mean i'm home so uh i i just went i saw it in dolby actually and i think there were three possibly four other people in the dolby theater which is a large theater um i yeah i i just i just want to say this up front i think so first of all sunny didn't kind of like it your review with you were like emo in your review of this movie you liked it so much so don't go soft pedaling it now don't try to dial it story and movie and art uh i think vic and i probably have a different view possibly but at the coda of the movie george miller dedicates it to his dead wife i do part of me feels very nervous about making fun of this because i suspect that this is a deeply personal movie for him in some way about no no am i wrong sunny well it's clearly
Sonny00:28:56it's clearly a very personal sorry it's okay should we do a big boy review so our listeners know that we can get deeply into this thing so three thousand years of longing is about a uh a a woman who's played by tilda swinton she's a narratologist she's a a scientist of narrative narration narratives there we go narratives um and she gave her student loans
JVL00:29:23what a and she's a claptrap perfect example she uh she in a turkish bazaar finds a
Sonny00:29:33uh lamp that she rubs and out pops a genie boom genie's like you gotta make three wishes
JVL00:29:38the crucial part which is that before this she is seeing things which don't exist she's seeing
Sonny00:29:45people who don't exist yes before this she is seeing she is seeing vision getting at the airport she is seeing visions that may or may not be there that uh are are possibly and she
JVL00:29:58tells you know in her head that this is something which has happened her entire life okay she says that like you know i've seen yeah this is just a thing that happens like you know when i get stressed out my brain does this jbl why don't you why don't you do the big no i don't want to do the bad but i just think this is a very key key point of the plot thank you am i wrong continue
Sonny00:30:18sunny please uh well it depends on which which interpretation you're going with which i'm uh i'm kind of curious to see where you're where you're headed with us anyway uh out pops a genie genie's like you got to make three wishes to set me free that i i need you to make three wishes wish for whatever you want but it has to be what your heart desires you can't just wish for she has three three nonsense wishes because she believes as a narratologist she has never heard a story about wishes that does not involve wishes being used against cautionary tales they're all cautionary tales anytime you make a wish you end up getting hoisted by your batard that's that's how it that's how it works and so the uh the genie proceeds to tell his life story the jinn the he's a jinn uh proceeds to tell his life story and all of the stories involve people getting hoisted by their batard everybody you know blowback wish blowback happens uh over and over again and he's like no but it's not it's not intentional i'm not a trickster jinn i'm just i'm just trying to get free from this bottle where i've been placed by uh solomon the king solomon has put me in this because i uh was very angry that he was banging the the woman i wanted to bang um anyway the the woman with the hairy legs the one with the hairy legs so there this this story is working on kind of two levels the first is a kind of meta narrative like what does what does what does story mean what what you know what uh are we looking for from stories and then there's also just a kind of standard uh but not really standard love story you know we like how much does does love actually matter in our own stories whatever um i like this movie a lot i i uh i i found it entrancing i i can't believe you guys thought it was slow it is it is a i i i thought it was paced really well until the last 20 minutes or so the coda where they go back to england and things kind of slow down and that that felt like a mistake to me but uh no i like i like this movie a lot and i'm i'm surprised i'm surprised that you guys don't have more appreciation for a story that is about the importance of fine the importance of living a life outside of yourself about finding uh you know connection in the world and that sort of thing i had i had folks telling me like oh you you you're gonna you're gonna ever they're gonna love this because it's so catholic it's a very catholic movie is what is what i was told sunny is so ready for our cia yeah look if
Vic00:33:00it can happen to shia labeouf it's gonna happen to sunny it's got to come on man okay jvl you're
JVL00:33:05your thoughts on this i i hated it more than any movie i've seen i guess recently i mean somebody's gonna pick a movie that we saw two weeks ago that i hated but i i really did not like more than uncut gems which you know which he walked out of like a job more than uncut gems uh i i found it so self-indulgent and again this is why at the end when it flashes like in memory and i know nothing about george miller's biography but the code on it sounds like it's dedicated to his dead wife who just passed away or something which so i thought to myself oh this is why it's a self-indulgent mess because this guy is working through grief you know about losing the love of his life or something uh it did not work for me on any level uh not not the first level not the second level not the third level not not not the the sub-level uh it did nothing makes sense nothing has paid off the you know um i mean i i i don't even quite know where to start because i don't want to sound like i'm picking it apart uh but also fundamentally i could not have cared less about any character in it i didn't care about her at all i didn't really care about the jinn uh i didn't care about any of the the women that he had been entangled all these years that he spends time to if you don't care about the characters and stories then the stories are meaningless to the audience and they were meaningless to me and i i don't dick help me out here am i crazy no no i didn't like this movie although it you know it it felt like it was three hours long like it was it's an hour 40. okay right now we're 40 sunny or a little longer yeah it is
Vic00:34:59funny because you know the quadrant it's a bit deceptive here the plot haven't even talked about the heaviest part of this movie right now okay yeah i'll save that thought save that thought okay so we'll get to it when i get to the end of the quadrant because um it overall it's like a b minus because the plot is b plus it's pretty easy to understand but there's a whole section of there was a what you can say there was no plot who are the people that she's imagining the people how do you understand this okay yes that is outside of the genie number one which made you think is this all in her head okay that's the first part but people see it obviously the neighbors met him okay that's the first thing but the other weird thing was um did they meet him are the
JVL00:35:39neighbors seeing or is that all in her head no no no their reaction it is not clear oh that they're just looking and just seeing her standing there well they're holding right although you don't see
Vic00:35:51them eat it no the what looks like a delicious garbanzo bean which i is that i'm not going to complain if that's all he knows how to make as a gd because it looks delightful however uh the other is um what is there was a weird moment where he couldn't get back in the bottle and so he becomes invisible and so he's just roaming around like an invisible person okay uh duration again i gave it a c action violence is like a d i mean i guess there was some sword play but and but sex nudity saved it it's an a plus now why was it an a plus because was there there was subsex from a distance with the queen of sheba and king solomon who i had no idea had magical powers but also nudity
JVL00:36:33boy solomon shows up like three different times throughout history right king solomon is always there to monkey with the with the jinn because he is with sheba in the beginning yeah and then he the same actor king solomon shows up as chasing the other person no and then in the airport the king the king solomon character is the tsa guy who snatches the bottle from her and puts it through the x-ray machine so that she thinks the x-rays are going to kill the electromagnetic energy this she's a crazy cat lady and the whole thing's in her head but please explain explain explain the fat stuff because this is going to make it sound like we're being sexist pigs but we're really not okay and then and then and then and then
Vic00:37:19the other thing is uh what if you haven't seen this movie and gene mentioned it in his review uh and soda jvl is one of the scenes of course one of the moments in the genie's life is where he is uh um talking about uh the the son the prince of the sultan and the other brother who would have been heir to the throne except for the brother is sort of a simpleton and he's extremely large and he gets locked into he he gets locked into a harem i initially thought oh this is going to be great you know because you know he's locked with these with these sex slaves and all they're gonna he's just locked in there even if he's this sort of this fat lob and what you know but this will be interesting and speaking of fetishes yeah yeah i mean you know and so uh but the end result is he wanted all the women in that harem to be ginormous and you see it so much so so large you actually in some cases don't see everything and it's just what is happening there that was a lot to see that you cannot unsee okay circus freak large
JVL00:38:26this is what it was we're not talking about lane bryant large we're talking about no no no circus freak no like truly genuinely unhealthy like 10 minutes of screen time oh it's it's quite something
Vic00:38:41and i do were they actual were they were there fat suits involved do you think or is this the
JVL00:38:47real deal did we see the real deal i don't think so i i mean i i look at it honestly this is it's gonna sound wrong this was gratuitous nudity yes like this is one of those cases where you look and you're like why this actually is not necessary you could convey all of this stuff exactly the same without it it's there's no reason to do it it was meant to shock uh okay so you you're offended you were offended by a puritan how dare they show this so uh sunny to go back to uh jonathan's
Vic00:39:20queries uh how do you explain these things well i mean i do think there's i think there is a
Sonny00:39:27there is a plausible case within the uh film itself to argue that she's having some sort of uh psychotic break i mean i i don't think that's i don't think that's a an unreasonable reading but i do think i do think it kind of undercuts the i think that that read is undercut by the last uh section in which the old ladies do actually see the gin i'm pretty sure they do i think it's shot intentionally to make it
Vic00:39:54ambiguous but there's also the soccer ball at the end and the whole deal when he kicks it to the boys you know she didn't do that yeah i guess that's right that is the one sixth sense-ish
JVL00:40:05moment where you you are led to believe he is existing in the world in some way yeah
Vic00:40:11that he appears but then the rest of it why why have it though then like so why if if this is
JVL00:40:17real then why are we shown her hallucinating these other characters who we then see in the
Sonny00:40:23genie stories but the whole thing is the whole thing is magical realism right i mean this is like this is not a it's it's like it's like a salman rushdie novel right this is this is there there are things that are happening that could obviously never happen like even all right so go back to the so in the first flashback the he sees uh queen of sheba and solomon getting together and solomon is playing like a sitar that has its own that can like sing it has a mouth it has its own hands well because i mean right so like that is setting that is setting kind of the whole tone for the the story and again thank god it's a story it's a story about stories in the sense that like what stories do we tell ourselves to order our own lives make the most sense so you can have magical stories of you know wizards and genies and gods and whatnot uh but there's a reason that the large hadron collider makes several appearances in this because the other the other form of story that we tell ourselves is a story of science like we are we are creatures that a you know event a has led to event b all the way up until we're sitting here talking to each other on this podcast like the the story of science is the other story of existence and those things being a intention or b in concert with one another i think is interesting it's an interesting idea the the argument of this film is that science cannot replace story and story as the narrative thrust of humanity i think is basically what it's going for um and i you know i you you you clearly were not on its level i want to read from my review because i was curious maybe maybe i oversold it a little bit but this is this is i think about right can you give yourself over to a story that hops from the song solomon replete with mythical creatures and instruments alike right up to the large hadron colliders unraveling of the mysteries of the universe in an effort to draw similarities between the hubris and desire of individuals across millennia will a minotaur minotaur's horns or the suggestion of sentient electromagnetic waves make you snigger in equal measure and they clearly do so you could not get on its vibes this is on you jvl you are uh you are
JVL00:42:46uh you're vibeless magical realism is to me what musicals are to you which is why like the entire oeuvre of pedro almodovar has always been totally lost on me like i just you know like water for chocolate people love that i'm just like get the out of this uh terry gilliam movies get me the out of this like baron von munchausen no pass pass pass pass and so maybe that's maybe that's what this is maybe i just well this is not this movie calls to mind this movie absolutely
Sonny00:43:18calls to mind like i was going to say time bandits but i don't know why am i thinking time or like the never-ending story something like that i mean i mean like and i that was that is like my childhood right there that is my milieu so like i am steeped in this sort of thing it is maybe that it is very much something i am maybe the maybe it's a me
JVL00:43:39problem but if it's a me problem it's also a vic problem yeah i i just could not have i i just i
Vic00:43:47couldn't care less i'm sorry i was like why is solomon there what is happening here why why is
Sonny00:43:52the character of solomon showing up in all these other different roles wait what is the point this
JVL00:43:57is what i'm saying like things like that bothered me because it seems to me there should be a a narrative reason for that right well he's trying to keep the jinn imprisoned but they're not but why as punishment punishment for what punishment for lust is he still lasting is he still also alive are they all followers is there a secret society of solomons like what what the is
Sonny00:44:20happening here and are you i i just again you're you're you're looking for logical explanations well i just don't like that that is not how this movie i don't like including you want the large
JVL00:44:33hadron colliders version of it i don't like you want details that you don't pay off if you're then going to ignore them right and like that i just like like the myth that that mystical creature
Vic00:44:44in the audience at the beginning when she's giving her talk and every time she looks he gets closer and closer and he says rubbish what happened and then he's in she says he's that he's in she that
JVL00:44:56he was as is the as is the little person from uh i'm sorry the little person yes from the airport
Sonny00:45:02is also in sheba's court also and this is the the the the yelling of rubbish and running at her as she as she is literally up there talking about how science is replacing myth as the ordering you know format of our lives he rushes up there and he says rubbish because it is rubbish because we need we need stories we need heroes we need myths and legends so i guess what you're saying is this is an hour and 40 minute
JVL00:45:32version of the nicole kidman thing where from the amc opener she it's the same message it's the same message but it's an hour 40 version because we come here to see stories which which make us laugh make us cry make us dream of the highest things human beings can can do i've ever heard yeah their stories are perfect amc theaters uh yeah i'm i just i couldn't care
Vic00:46:05less i found it completely uninteresting i felt i was bored and i just was like can i get out of here can i leave i just was like i just couldn't get out i did not care
JVL00:46:15for any of the stories and it doesn't help that tilda swinton is one of the most grating screen
Vic00:46:25presences in all of filmed entertainment i i like her as a villain unusual for her to be in this big role like this um she uh one of my favorite um roles i've i'd seen her in is in the movie michael clayton do you remember that she is the head of that uh the company perfect in that were you surprised that one of her wishes was not to live in a commune no i she lives in sweden she lives at a commune i think that's only in the beach oh because she's the villain in the beach no but in real life i think she lived in a country i want to run through
Sonny00:47:06some of these roles that you don't so you don't like her in the beach i don't like her in anything and it's not i it's she doesn't you didn't like her in constantine the keanu reese neither of
JVL00:47:16these movies in in every time i see her on screen it's she is vicky guerrero to me right vicky guerrero is when you just you hate the person's face and just want them to go away that's how i feel about tilda swinton wait a minute what about dr strange swinton uh you know actually doctor strange is the one role that i i like her in because she has this she exudes smug superiority but she does it well in every but but that's all she does him the one role the one rule that i've seen her that i actually what about the french friends i really liked her in the french dispatch and she but that's a totally off brand tilda swinton like you know she's she's doing something quite different because she's she's like you know doing her weird catherine hepburn thing there's a weird accent she's not being tilda swinton and this is you know she's just a crazy cat lady that's that's her character that she plays over
Vic00:48:14i found it interesting in the end when you know she convinces so case listeners are wondering her wishes to be with the genie love she's lonely the genie would love her yes and and and that in itself much like the other cautionary tales it just doesn't work you can't you can't force him and but also slave him it's out of character like she has just spent
JVL00:48:33the entire hour before this saying i'm not going to do any of these things which and then all of a sudden she's like okay actually will you love me that's my wish she's very vulnerable so it's not
Vic00:48:43but it's not earned that that turn is not earned at all uh there's also the post consummation scene or a pseudo mystical consummation scene where he's enwrapped he has her in her arms you notice how large he is in that form so i think she likes her in certain sizes depending shack so yeah you know uh anyway um ah um i really hated it what what is what i don't know why
JVL00:49:15i don't know why why why am i offended by it i just i just was yeah i what is a scottish
Vic00:49:22accent is that what she's affecting here a scottish accent scottish or irish yeah i was i was one of them i don't know i i would like to have what the genie has these sort of the dust the orgasmic dust that looks very interesting could use that i would put that in uh drinks at the bar sorry just trying to do something here that's right at 49 minutes okay um the oil did he mention something about oils of enchantment aren't there oils i wrote this down because there was yeah yeah that's what he makes and he gives the oils to the girls the second girl that he he helps the slave the one who wants knowledge right no no no no no that's the third one oh the second one was
JVL00:50:05can i ask that was a that was a bad one idris elba is a wonderful actor i really enjoy him as a screen presence and yet he takes the shittiest work like this and the gunslinger from the dark tower disaster the dark tower was terrible and the the lion beast i just like why has nobody figured out a way to turn him into a star is it a beast is good actually but
Vic00:50:36you would like it more than this i bet that's true i is uh is it because like uh michael kane explained uh in jvl you told this to me a very long time ago is it just because he's a british actor and he doesn't say no to roles he'll just do it it's worth maybe
JVL00:50:51maybe that's what it is but like somebody i don't know somebody nobody has figured out how to put him as a lead in a marvel movie and have him he's already a character marvel yeah he's already he's already a marvelous that's right the rainbow bridge and he so he has a crappy role even in marvel like you know you know like even in even in the mc they don't use him well um question
Vic00:51:14he can't be with her in the end uh just because i don't think that that well she could never move
JVL00:51:21to istanbul where they have no electromagnetic waves at all i was going to say because the wi-fi
Vic00:51:27in istanbul is not the same as in london everybody in istanbul uses ethernet ports to connect their things and banned radio towers that's my question what was what was killing him in london versus
Sonny00:51:40istanbul pretty sure in istanbul they have phones too many too many cell phone right it was where
Vic00:51:46she was located and that you know there's a warning there don't live in any of these communities where
Sonny00:51:50you're right next to those towers yeah i mean i again i i think the last 20 or 30 minutes of this movie is is more confused than the first part because i do think it tries to literalize some of the things that they are you know kind of telling stories and using telling stories about
JVL00:52:07and using metaphors i have another con another complaint there is there's a lot to be made in in this over whether or not he is a trickster jinn or not and he says no i'm not like one of those i'm not a trickster and this this is a recurring conversation they have this conversation at least three times this is like the no true scotsman thing and how could she possibly right if if if a jinn says i'm not a trickster that is meaningless to you because that is what a trickster would say right this is and and so if you're not going to settle this in some clever way then why bring it up why have this conversation why include this in the movie
Sonny00:52:49i i no well because it's i mean it's it this is what this is her fundamental problem with the whole jinn thing is that they're all tricks they're any any wish again any wish narrative is always a cautionary tale it's always a it's always a warning against ultimately her and like and there's there's i think i i again i think there's like an interesting idea here which is basically like are if you are armed with post-modernism can you defeat the the narrative and to which you have been thrust if you are aware that you are in a cautionary tale uh can you avoid becoming the cautionary tale okay and and so i i would be
JVL00:53:30open to that if again if there was some explanation as to why she changes her mind and just embraces the cautionary tale begin that that the unearnedness of that turn where she's all of a sudden like i guess just love me just love me i wish that because because that's the wish because
Sonny00:53:49that's all that's all because that's all anybody wants all anybody wants is to be loved jbl
JVL00:53:54i mean it's the only thing that your sonny bunch say that just tells me that there are changes happening i don't know what's wow sonny's getting all girly and emo yeah hey man i'm just i'm just
Sonny00:54:09telling you i'm just on the movie's level you're you're not able to give yourself over to the art
Vic00:54:13man that's i'm just looking at pictures and wanting to be interested in it and i was not uh although i you just want to see moving pictures give me something that's you know i don't know a normal movie images a normal movie uh is i for the record did not
Sonny00:54:32suggest we i thought you did i got to go back i know i did i did because of sonny's review which
JVL00:54:37was so rapturous oh you were fooled by the trickster in this podcast the
Vic00:54:48well there you look he just disappeared how can i can't believe we were fools like that
Sonny00:54:52um i i love how it's been a while it's been a five year long time i finally got you finally got you
Vic00:55:00uh uh i i love i you know there was this that moment of tension when she's in the airport and she's worried about the bottle oh the x-rays the x-rays right which by the way that's not the
JVL00:55:12bottle that he was it was different okay whatever i guess this is his new salt bottle
Sonny00:55:17to he went into this well they broke the one yeah what happened to the other one and then they put
Vic00:55:20him in the check that in logic and he didn't want he didn't want him he's an ethereal creature why
JVL00:55:24does he have to travel in the bottle why can't he just fly over he is one to be invisible
Sonny00:55:30uh so that was weird but i also thought i can't have a gin without a bottle what kind of he spent
JVL00:55:362 000 years wandering around without a bottle in the middle of the movie he did he did because the bottle was trapped under a stone he had to wait till the giant naked fat chick stepped on the stone he was he was he was not in the bottle he was invisible to everyone no he was invisible that
Vic00:55:53was what i was saying earlier so there's this whole time where he's not in a bottle he wants
JVL00:55:57to be reunited with the bottle he wants he wants to get back into the bottle right and the and the
Vic00:56:02large and the large uh this is the seraglio as they call it and the large lady in the harem says uh i wish for you to be back in this bottle in the bottom of the bosporus and that was where he was obviously not there before that for a very very long time hanging out in you know some fortress in constantinople no she opens she
Sonny00:56:24opens the bottle and he comes out and he's like ah you gotta wish that was the other way to wish
JVL00:56:28something i'm telling you you'll have to go see it again sonny we're all gonna go see it together i'm gonna i'm gonna kidnap you we're all gonna go and you know so just so we can maybe experience together and then talk afterwards and do each other's nails yeah great maybe you get a little bit
Vic00:56:46of that pumpkin spice latte and we could just talk about a good movie uh i'll the only you know what the takeaway was from me don't go to the istanbul airport because there's always tension there whether it be this movie or midnight express don't try don't try to pass through your your genie bottles or hashish that's what you can't do okay uh do we have any more thoughts on 3000 years no
Sonny00:57:09you guys i'm tired of hearing you whine about this good movie that you didn't make great piece of art uh that is all the time some of us just like some of us just like art some of us don't that's fine
Vic00:57:22that's no big deal that is all the time we're giving to this episode questions comments compliments tweet us at sunny bunch at victorina mattis again be sure to subscribe to us on patreon just go to subbeacon.com we're there tell your friends until next time i wanted to talk about something
JVL00:57:45unless you had something no i'm just going to say that in a way this is perfectly in keeping with sunny's like what do i care about the web telescope who cares about artemis going to the moon he just wants stories narrative and i'm like science
Vic00:58:00science all right think what do you got interesting do you have thoughts on the new uh news about anna de armas in the nc-17 rating tell me more no you missed this jvl uh this was in the hollywood reporter uh this movie got slapped is it official uh sunny yeah it's a nc-17 no children 17 or
Sonny00:58:24under admitted to your television is this the maryland monroe movie yes
Vic00:58:29yes blonde so she's obviously very upset about and worked up about it but i'm thinking this is this is good right is there still a stigma of like oh well i guess i can't see it because it's nc-17 sunny like you know showgirls or you know that other movie about henry miller you know well never henry and june henry and june thank you with fred ward the late fred ward did not want to see that uh that's a bad one i mean i i would say you just get very
Sonny00:59:00few nc-17 movies released they just don't come out because you can't advertise them you can't really put them in amcs or regals or anything well so you think most newspapers most newspapers won't accept advertisements for nc-17 movies because it's you know if snapchat and tick tock will take ads for it then then who cares though right yeah i mean that's the you can show plenty of ads i mean
Vic00:59:28it's going to it's you you think it'll have like a uh what kind of a theatrical release uh is it
Sonny00:59:33going to be like i think it's going to have i think it's no no it's going to have i think it's going to have a limited theatrical release i think it's in for like a week i think it's got a week of
Vic00:59:44exclusivity in theater and then and then and then streaming and then it'll be on it'll be i i think
JVL00:59:50you'll be able to watch i'd rather see this at home i don't think to be very honest i think i might be uncomfortable watching naked and an arm as prancing around in in public with like in a theater you're saying in a theater with like a bunch of other sweaty trench-coated dudes like
Vic01:00:07us that's gonna say because imagine i'm sorry imagine if somebody uh chooses to sit next to you
Sonny01:00:13i think i think you guys are gonna be disappointed by this movie if i had sonny you haven't seen it yet have you just no i haven't i haven't seen it yet but knowing knowing kind of what it's about and what some i i i'll be curious to see how it does on the quadrants i'll tell you this i'm i
Vic01:00:35heard the news that it was nc-17 and i was pumped i'll get it i'm sure it's fine
Sonny01:00:43no i don't get it i don't wait no we can't stop you i don't understand pumped it's pumping i don't get it i'm pumping i don't understand it's over it's over the show's over
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